Goddard hoping to get 30% more data from Compton now that the Tidbinbilla relay station is running and TDRS-1 is repositioned to work with it. (Compton's tape recorders are dead and real-time relay is necessary, but the operational TDRS network has a blind area on the other side of the Earth from White Sands.)
ESA and CNES expected to approve a proposal to do a commercial comsat launch on the second test of Ariane 5, at a substantial discount given the experimental nature of the flight.
USAF trying to figure out what to do about its aging missile-warning satellite network. Four of the five operational birds have problems of one kind or another, limiting what can be done with them, and while replacement birds are available, Titan IV's problems have stalled them. One replacement is scheduled for Titan IV launch this autumn, and the USAF is talking to NASA about a mid-1995 shuttle launch for another. There is massive confusion and political warfare over the question of building more of the existing design (there are six in storage and a seventh underway, but a contract for two more was cancelled), upgrading it, or building something new (which currently is proposed as a set of smaller birds that could go up on Atlas). In particular, there is a proposal to add a narrow-angle multispectral sensor to the existing design to improve its tactical capabilities -- the satellites have a suitable mounting location already, because a planned intersatellite laser-link system was cancelled due to budget overruns -- but the USAF strongly prefers an all-new system.
Space-station design review, involving all partners, turns up no major show-stoppers but some not-yet-solved problems in integration of the Russian hardware. Particular issues are where to put an optical-quality window for Earth viewing (the cupola is the obvious place, but it's poorly located for Earth observation) and whether the Soyuz-based lifeboat and the Soyuzes that the Russians will use for transportation should be the same design. The program claims to be ahead of schedule.
Newly-formed Teledesic Corp (partly owned by Bill Gates) proposes a new LEO-comsat system, using 924 [!!!] satellites, 40 birds plus 4 spares in each of 21 Sun-synchronous orbital planes at 700km. The large number of satellites is due to the choice of frequency -- 20/30GHz -- which puts a premium on having the satellite high in the sky to minimize water-vapor absorption of the signal. Teledesic has decided to work only at >40deg satellite elevations, which means a satellite's footprint is only about 700km wide, demanding many satellites. There will be intersatellite links, with each bird connected to its four nearest neighbors in its own plane plus one apiece in the nearest four planes. The satellites are planned to be about 700kg and to use a large deployable phased-array antenna.
US congressional delegation says Baikonur remains functional, but the surrounding infrastructure badly needs upgrading -- "as a minimum, restoration of utilties, municipal services, and food distribution to levels of two years ago would seem necessary" -- if the space-station program is to be dependent on it.
Meanwhile, Russia is examining the possibility of a new launch site, perhaps at the Svobodny missile base in eastern Siberia. Svobodny currently houses several dozen ICBM silos, at 50deg latitude, 250mi from the Sea of Japan and only about 50mi from the Chinese border. The idea would be to have an initial launch capability in about two years, and eventual support for uprated versions of Proton. Whether this will actually happen or not is unclear; the study is widely believed to be intended partly as a political maneuver, making it clear to Kazakhstan that there are alternatives to Baikonur.
NASP to be renamed HySTP (Hypersonic System Technology Program) in the new fiscal year, signalling final abandonment of the X-30 effort in favor of a more modest effort focussed on scramjet propulsion issues. HySTP plans four scramjet tests using surplus Minuteman or MX missiles as boosters, to start in 1997. [I'm largely discontinuing coverage of the tail end of NASP, now that its relevance to spaceflight has mostly disappeared.]
Sure enough, Galileo has found a moon orbiting Ida. It's about 1.5km across and has been temporarily dubbed Ida-2. The imaging team, looking at image strips to select data for return to Earth, found it Feb 17, and the infrared-spectrometer people saw it in their data Feb 23. The IR data was taken a few minutes after the image, permitting triangulation of Ida-2's position: it was about 100km from Ida. More data is trickling back, and it should give better pictures of Ida-2 and at least a rough idea of the orbit. A search will also be made for other satellites. It is just possible that Hubble might be able to see Ida-2.
The origins of Ida-2 are somewhat unclear. It's unlikely to be either ejecta from cratering on Ida or an independent body captured by Ida, because it is too difficult to get a stable orbit either way. The leading theory is that Ida-2 was formed at the same time as Ida, in the breakup of a larger asteroid. Later infrared data from Galileo should permit a guess as to whether Ida and Ida-2 have the same surface composition; all that's known now is that they're not grossly different. [Note that this is as of late March.] Some tearing of hair over the age of Ida and Ida-2: pre-Galileo data indicated that Ida was probably fairly young, but Galileo images show enough cratering to suggest a much longer history... but Ida-2 is too weakly bound to stay in orbit that long, and too small to survive a similar long bombardment.
"Viewpoint" editorial (by Jeffrey Manber of NPO Energia's US operations) saying that at last the US has a coherent space policy again... even if its objectives are boosting high-tech manufacturing, demonstrating more efficient government agencies, and supporting Russian reform, with nary a mention of objectives in *space*. It does, at least, recognize that this White House has zero interest in space exploration, and it is, at least, coherent enough to set priorities from (unlike what passed for space policy under Bush).
"All I really want is a rich uncle." | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology - Wernher von Braun | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry